UK Children

It all starts off fine. You bring your little bundle of helpless joy home from the hospital in a state of awe and shock. You eventually emerge from the newborn fog and begin to feel like you have a handle on this. Then your baby gets clever.

Children often notice more than adults give them credit for. If a relative is living with dementia, there may be a need to explain to a child about particular symptoms or why that person can no longer do something that they used to do.

Following divorce proceedings, they gain residency of the 'object' that both parents probably care most about. She has one up on the father who is forced to resign his fatherly duties to alternate weekends. But what strain does this then put on the mother?

The year 2015 is going to be a cracker for feminism. A renewed enthusiasm for women's rights and even a campaign to remove VAT from sanitary products. An exciting time. But let's take a moment to think about something which leaves many a feminist - and I count myself as one *punches air* - with a profound sense of unease.

Some encouraging results from the survey indeed show that children from lower socio-economic backgrounds spend more time reading on devices than their wealthier peers. More encouraging results: print books are actually more popular with three to five-year-olds than reading on devices!

Our shocking findings show that an estimated 12,000 16 and 17-year-olds - enough to fill Wembley arena - have asked their council for help in finding a new home for them. But more than half are turned away without even being assessed.

The parent of a disabled child, you are suddenly forced to look with a hard and discerning eye at the society your children live in. Will it nurture them, in spite of their condition, or will it neglect them?

Yesterday Education Secretary Nicky Morgan stated that being academic in the modern world simply isn't enough, and that too narrow a focus was given to passing exams, when more time should be spent developing the grit and resilience young people will do frequently need in life. This is a message I wholeheartedly agree with, but it is a little late in coming.

It has been commonly said that you only fully learn to appreciate your parents after you have had your own children. For me, this has proven true. It is now that I see how much work it is being a Mother. It is rewarding, yes, but also a huge sacrifice.

I would do rational tomorrow. Today, I was freaking out. I hurried down to the location, hair thrown on top of head, make-up absent and dressed in full-spandex running gear as I knew my endurance would be tested.

No doubt it will become more usual for both parents to take on more equal roles in parenting in the future - particularly given the changes in parental leave at work that are set to come into force in the UK in the coming weeks.

My husband or I will phone ahead, tell them the kids have Coeliac Disease and ask if they have gluten free choices on the menu, they say yes, we tell the kids, then off we go. Inevitably we arrive to find that whilst they do gluten free for adults they don't for children.

To mark World Water Day on Sunday 22nd of March, the international water and sanitation charity WaterAid has asked the public to reflect on what water means to them through the film competition sH2Orts.

When our children are very young we think we are in a living Hell.We think that nothing could EVER be as bad as this living Hell, except possibly if our father-in Law came round for tea as well and pointed out how we should just relax more.

A week ago, a columnist of the Daily Mail was telling her readers why she had suddenly decided to ban the four-time Bafta-winning cartoon Peppa Pig from her home. Is Britain's top-selling pre-school character as dangerous and evil as the journalist claims it is?

Somewhere along the way of growing up, we lose that special talent of not taking things personally and we get so serious about any little offence. We don't let other people off the hook with forgiveness easily, and we harbour ill feelings for a long, often unhealthy, amount of time.